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Brewing (Take of good Jamaica ginger oz)

Take of good Jamaica ginger 24 oz., moist sugar 3 lbs., cream of tartar 1 oz., the juice and peel of two middling-sized lemons, brandy pint, good solid ale yeast pint, water 34 galls. This will produce 44 dozen of excellent ginger beer, which will keep 12 months. Bruise the ginger and sugar, and boil them for 20 or 25 minutes in the water; slice the lemon and put it and the cream of tartar into a large pan; pour the boiling liquor upon them, stir it well round, and when milk warm add the yeast. Cover it over, let it remain 2 or 3 days to work, skimming it frequently; then strain it through a jelly-bag into a cask, add the brandy, bung down very close, and at the end of a fortnight or 3 weeks draw it off and bottle, and cork very tight; tie the cork down with twine or wire.

If it does not work well at first, add a little more yeast, but be careful not to add too much, lest it taste of it.

Mead.

Take of honey 3 galls., heat to the boiling point, taking great care that it does not boil over; pour this into a barrel half filled with cold water; let it stand 20 or 25 minutes, and add yeast 1 pint, oil nutmeg 1 tablespoonful, oil of lemon or orange 1 ounce. Fill the barrel with water, and let it ferment.

Sarsaparilla Beer, or Lisbon Diet Drink.

Take of compound syrup of sarsaparilla 1 pint, good pale ale 7 pints. Use no yeast.

Cheap Beer.

Pour 10 galls. of boiling water upon 1 peck of malt in a tub, stir it about well with a stick, let it stand about half an hour, and then draw off the wort; pour 10 galls. more of boiling water upon the malt, letting it remain another half hour, stirring it occasionally, then draw it off and put it to the former wort. When this is done, mix 4 oz. of hops with it, and boil it well; then strain the hops from it, and when the wort becomes milk warm put some yeast to it to make it ferment; when the fermentation is nearly over, put the liquor into a cask, and, as soon as the fermentation has perfectly subsided, bung it close down. The beer is then fit for use.

To make Beer and Ale from Pea-shells.

No production of this country abounds so much with vegetable saccharine matter as the shells of green peas. A strong decoction of them so much resembles, in odor and taste, an infusion of malt (termed wort) as to deceive a brewer. This decoction, rendered slightly bitter with the wood sage, and afterwards fermented with yeast, affords a very excellent beverage. The method employed is as follows:

Fill a boiler with the green shells of peas, pour on water till it rises half an inch above the shells, and simmer for three hours. Strain off the liquor, and add a strong decoction of the wood-sage, or the hop, so as to render it pleasantly bitter; then ferment in the usual manner. The wood-sage is the best substitute for hops, and, being free from any anodyne property, is entitled to a preference.

By boiling a fresh quantity of shells in the decoction before it becomes cold, it may be so thoroughly impregnated with saccharine matter as to afford a liquor, when fermented, as strong as ale.

Required Time for Keeping Beer.

This depends on the temperature at which the malt has been made, thus:

Malt made at 110° will produce beer which may be drawn in a fortnight; at 124°, in a month; at 129°, in 3 months; at 134°, in 4 months; at 138°, in 6 months; at 143°, in 8 months; at 148° in 10 months; at 152°, in 15 months: at 157°, in 20 months; at 162°, in 24 months.

To give any required Brightness or Color to Beer.

This depends on the temperature at which the malt has been made, and on its color, thus:

Malt made at 119° produces a white; at 124°, a cream color; at 129°, a light yellow; at 134°, an amber color.

These, when properly brewed, become spontaneously fine, even as far as 138°. When brewed for amber, by repeated fermentations, they become pellucid. At 138°, a high amber; at 143°, a pale brown.

By precipitation, these grow bright in a short time. At 148°, a brown; at 152°, a high brown.

With precipitation these require 8 or 10 months to be bright. At 157°, a brown, inclining to black; at 162°, a brown speckled with black.

With precipitation these may be fined, but will never become bright. At 167°, a blackish brown speckled with black; at 171°, a color of burnt coffee; at 176°, a black.

These with difficulty can be brewed without setting the goods, and will by no means become bright, not even with the strongest acid menstruum.

To Brew Amber Beer.

Amber is now out of fashion, but formerly was drunk in great quantities in London, mixed with bitters, and called purl. The proportions of malt were 3 qrs. amber, and 1 qr. pale, with 6 lbs. of hops to the qr. The first liquor is usually tunned at 170°, and the second at 187°. The worts are boiled together for 2 hours. It is tunned at 64°, and after 24 hours roused every 2 hours till the heat is increased to 74°. It is then skimmed barrels. every hour for 6 hours and cleansed, and generally used as soon as it has done working in the Another Method of Brewing Amber Beer, or Twopenny.

For 36 galls.: malt, 1½ bus.; hops, 1 lb.; liquorice root, 1 lb. 8 oz.; treacle, 5 lb.; Spanish liquorice, 2 oz.; capsicum, 2 drs. Frequently drunk the week after it is brewed; used in cold weather as a stimulant.

To make Molasses Beer.

For small beer, put 9 lbs. of molasses into a barrel-copper of cold water, first mixing it well, and boiling it briskly with lb. of hops or more 1 hour, so that it may come off 27 galls.

To Fine Beer.

To fine beer, should it be requisite, take an ounce of isinglass, cut small, and boil it in 3 qts. of beer, till completely dissolved; let it stand till quite cold, then put it into a cask, and stir it well with a stick or whisk; the beer so fined should be tapped soon, because the isinglass is apt to make it flat as well as fine.

Another Method.

Take a handful of salt, and the same quantity of chalk scraped fine and well dried; then take some isinglass, and dissolve it in some stale beer till it is about the consistence of syrup; strain it, and add about a quart to the salt and chalk, with 2 qts. of molasses. Mix them all well together, with a gallon of the beer, which must be drawn off; then put it into the cask, and take a stick or whisk, and stir it well till it ferments. When it has subsided, stop it up close, and in 2 days it may be tapped. This is sufficient for a butt.

Another. Take 1 pt. of water, and an oz. of unslaked lime, mix them well together, letting the mixture stand for 3 hours, that the lime may settle at the bottom. Then pour off the clear liquor, and mix with it oz. of isinglass, cut small and boiled in a little water; pour it into the barrel, and in 5 or 6 hours the beer will become fine.

Another. In general, it will become sufficiently fine by keeping; but fineness may be promoted by putting a handful of scalded hops into the cask.

If the beer continues thick, it may then be fined by putting 1 pt. of the following preparation into the barrel:

Put as much isinglass into a vessel as will occupy; then fill it up with old beer. When dissolved rub it through a sieve, and reduce it to the consistency of treacle with more beer. A pint of this put into the cask and gently stirred with a short stick, will fine the barrel in a few hours.

To Fine Cloudy Beer.

Rack off the cask, and boil 1 lb. of new hops in water, with coarse sugar, and when cold put in at the bung-hole.

Or, new hops soaked in beer, and squeezed, may be put into the cask.

Or, take 10 lbs. of baked pebblestone powder, with the whites of 6 eggs, and some powdered baysalt, and mix them with 2 galls. of the beer. Pour in the whole into the casks, and in 3 or 4 days it will settle, and the beer be fine and agreeable.

To Recover Thick, Sour Malt Liquor.

Make strong hop tea with boiling water and salt of tartar, and pour it into the cask.

Or, rack the cask into 2 casks of equal size, and fill them up with new beer.

To Vamp Malt Liquors.

Old beer may be renewed by racking 1 cask into 2, and filling them from a new brewing, and in 3 weeks it will be a fine article.

To Restore Musty Beer.

Run it through some hops that have been boiled in strong wort, and afterwards work it with double the quantity of new malt liquor; or if the fault is in the cask, draw it off into a sweet cask, and having boiled lb. of brown sugar in 1 qt. of water, add 1 or 2 spoonsful of yeast before it is quite cold, and when the mixture ferments, pour it into the cask.

To Enliven and Restore Dead Beer.

Boil some water and sugar, or water and treacle, together, and when cold add some new yeast; this will restore dead beer, or ripen bottled beer in 24 hours; and it will also make worts work in the tun if they are sluggish.

Or, a small teaspoonful of carbonate or soda may be mixed with a quart of it as it is drawn for drinking.

Or, boil for every gallon of the liquor 3 oz. of sugar in water; when cold add a little yeast, and put the fermenting mixture into the flat beer, whether it be a full cask or the bottom of the cask. Or, beer may often be restored which has become flat or stale, by rolling and shaking the casks for a considerable time, which will create such a new fermentation as to render it necessary to open a vent-peg to prevent the cask from bursting.

A Speedy way of Fining and Preserving a Cask of Ale or Beer.

Take a handful of the hops boiled in the first wort, and dried; lb. of loaf sugar dissolved in the beer; 1 lb. of chalk; and 1/2 lb. of calcined oyster-shells. Put the whole in at the bung-hole, stirring them well and then rebunging. This preparation will also suit for racked beer; in putting in the hops it may be advisable to place them in a net with a small stone in the bottom so as to sink them, otherwise they will swim at the top.